Conformity is one of the most important issues in psychology with regards to its relevance in society. It is a phenomenon that has always existed in modern culture, able to change people’s behaviour to the extent that they are “willing to call white black” in order to mould in with the group. This subject was thoroughly investigated in the 1950s by Solomon Asch (1956). He derived a simple test where nine participants are involved. One participant is completely nai?? ve to the experiment, where as the other eight ‘stooges’ have been given prior instructions.
When asked which line out of three possibilities matched most closely to an original line, the eight stooges would confidently give the wrong answer. The last participant would ultimately have a tough decision of whether to go with his/her sense, or with the general consensus of the group. This simple experiment has proved that people can be influenced to such an extent that they see conformity as more important than what they think is right. This, very importantly, is very easily translated into everyday social situations, mostly affecting children, and especially teenagers.
Once such external factors as drugs, alcohol, smoking, music and sex are introduced, it is easy for individuals to come under great pressure. One very common factor, rather unfortunately so, is drugs. The scenario could be a fifteen year old boy who is feeling pressure from friends to smoke cannabis. The boy’s feelings would include fear of disapproval from his friends, against his fears of the actual drug-taking. If he was to yield to the group pressure this would be known as compliance, where he is going along with what the group is doing for social approval.
This is an example of a normative influence. One possible outcome is that the boy, once trying cannabis for the first time, realises that he likes it. This is known as internalization, where the subject’s opinion is changed (- informational influence). We can therefore see how easily compliance can lead to internalization. Yielding to group pressure can actually change somebody’s opinions or behaviours towards a certain issue. In this case the boy, having yielded to the pressure from his group, has begun to like cannabis, and could very easily become someone who takes cannabis on a regular basis.